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Shadowblade
Gwathagor rose from his corner chair and moved towards the innkeeper's counter, stepping carefully between the tables of the merry folk who were lunching at the inn. At the counter, he hailed Seredic, who he had met earlier that day.
"Master Innkeeper, I beg your pardon for my rather graceless exit during our earlier conversation. The one I heard crying for help it seems was an elf-maid; one Gable. I found her seeking refuge in a tree, surrounded by hungry wolves. I slew her attackers, and Gable is safe. Has she returned to the inn yet?"
Dick responded in the negative.
"Hm. I had meant to ask her to elaborate further concerning a certain silver locket that was found with a certain pony. I...may know something about it. Do you have it near at hand, or do you know where I might find it?"
The elf's face was solemn and dispassionate as usual, but his hands trembled slightly. It was the lingering effect of the vision which he had just experienced, which had not yet faded from his mind. The images still blazed before his eyes, burning his mind with sorrow and cutting his soul like icicles of regret and longing. Part of him wished that the memories had remained where he had carefully buried them during his years of wandering. But now they were free; he knew he could not go back. And this locket: what could it mean? What did it signify? Particularly if it was the same that his fair lady had given him...could it be? If it HAD been found, what other dearly beloved things might also come to light? It had been thousands of years since he had lost that locket, during the fateful war. It had all begun then: the sorrow, the regret, the wandering. The hardening of his soul.
Even as Seredic was responding, Gwathagor drifted off again, slipping back into the past. Leaning on the counter, his head bowed, he tried to steel himself against the mist that swept over him, pulling him down, but he knew he was powerless. He must endure the full gauntlet of these visions, this reawakening, hurt him though it might. The past was dangerous, but wise; who knew where it might lead? And this was only the beginning...
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